Little Cat

by Tamara Faith Berger

  Michael grabbed on to my wrist and dug his fingers in. It reminded me of Nadia grabbing my arm at the bar with Adi, so long ago.

  Michael said my name desperately. ‘Mira, let’s read together, okay?’

  I tried to smile. ‘I have to work,’ I said.

  Then I went straight over to Adi, who welcomed me into her humping. I knew John would take a good look at me now. Me and Adi were fearsome, a tower, me pulling my shirt up, tits bare and jiggling, her squeezing me on top of a guy. I felt myself as pure sex power – hard and soft and completely plugged in. Adi’s rules of engagement had worked: I’d been a mirror with them, finally hard-edged and clear.

  The next time I looked over, John and Michael were gone.

  I climbed the rotting wooden stairs to the field where I’d been with Lani and Coco. I took off my shoes. Blood had run into them. I needed a patch wet with muddiness or dew. I got down on my knees and I dug through the grass. I got past the gravelly part until I struck mud, raking bugs, wrecking ant holes. I dug the ditch until I could feel up to my wrists, then my elbows, and I dug to my shoulder. Until I could’ve fallen in. I dropped Adi’s pillow in there. Mommy’s special pillow. I threw the ant-holed mud-wrecked earth on top. It was Adi who told me that all girls are whores. But only those who stay whores die.

  I knew Michael lived in one of those massive high-rise buildings downtown. I’d gone with John to visit him once on the twenty-second floor. I remembered how his place had a mustard-coloured shag carpet and cubic glass fixtures from the seventies. It had smelled like John’s at Michael’s place, too, that one time we’d been: burnt vegetable oil and smoke on top of smoke.

  I found Michael’s name on the directory, but it didn’t say the number of his place. I waited until a woman came out from the lobby. It was late but there was no security guard.

  I took the elevator to the twenty-second floor. It smelled like pepperoni in the hallway. I heard an electronic beat, so many TVs.

  I didn’t remember which door was his. The floor was a maze of brown and gold doors. I walked into dead ends, then retraced my steps. I passed the elevators at least three times.

  When Gio had stopped the car in the middle of the road, before he pulled me out and after he’d yelled, it felt like this time with my father when I was twelve, when he’d picked me up from a sleepover at Nadia’s aunt’s place up north. I’d called him to get me because I felt so stressed out from the night that I just needed to be at home. But when we’d arrived, I wouldn’t get out of the car. It was early in the morning on a Sunday and I’d made it through the night, but I remember how my father yelled at me when I wouldn’t get out of the car; he used the same voice that he used with the dog. He was this strange man in our driveway yelling for my mother: ‘She won’t get out of the car! She won’t get out of the bloody car!’ My father’s dull body with his face full of hair, hair around his lips and a voice full of spite. He was a person with skin red from yelling. That was what I knew inside the car, with my legs squeezed together, with my mother running out in her bathrobe, at the car, leaning in: ‘What’s wrong with you, Mira?’

  My mother spoke to my father with hoarseness in her throat. She said, ‘Go in the house. Everything’s fine.’

  My mother told my father I was fine.

  With my mother’s head poking back into the car, her coffee breath, it was easy enough to get out.

  ‘What is it, Mira?’ She said something like that. ‘What is wrong with you?’ Sighing. ‘I’m sure there’s a reason for this.’

  My mother put her arm around me even though I felt too old for hugs. We walked slowly to the house. We walked slowly up the stairs. It was all too gloomy between my mother and me, when I should have laughed, I was on the verge.

  Nadia’s aunt and boyfriend had been having sex through the walls all night. Her aunt was an alcoholic who had given me and Nadia our first beers. There was this choked sound or a pop. I’d never heard sounds like the sounds that she made that night, all night, and I thought she could’ve been dead and I wanted to wake Nadia up but I was too scared. I wanted to go home, I just wanted my home.

  Back at home, though, when I was twelve, when my father yelled for my mother because I wouldn’t get out of the car, I knew for certain that something was wrong. Something was fucked between women and men. I knew it because of the way that Nadia’s aunt acted like nothing was wrong in the morning light. I knew it when Nadia joked with her aunt. I knew because of how my mother looked at me after she told my father that everything was fine. I knew that both of them believed now that something wasn’t fine but neither of them knew exactly what it was. Or exactly how to talk to me ever again.

  The problem with my father yelling and the problem with my mother’s gloom and the fucked-up problem between men and women, between me and Ezrah and every man I’d ever known, was that I knew right now – the problem was mine.

  I slid away like a snake from my home. Because what my parents thought about me was true. What your parents think about you is true! What your father thinks, what your mother thinks, all of it is perfectly true. Your body is helpless so far from the ground as you grow. You’re see-through and flimsy and if you don’t slide away, slither, then you’ll stay and you’ll lie and have your head filled with their shit.

  When a girl’s body is just starting to be formed, people teach her to ignore the men in the street. Just ignore and ignore and all will be fine. If there’s a buzzing in your pants, don’t say a word. Even if something cracks loudly in your head, some rotting fence about to fall over, don’t say a word, because everything’s fine.

  But sometimes some things need to be said!

  All great whores become pure, Gio said.

  I knocked on Michael’s brown painted door with key scratches in the centre. I had to knock ten times, loud, because of the drum noise pounding.

  ‘Mirabella,’ the skeleton smiled.

  Michael shivered under his stained robe. He had long grey hairs growing out of his chin. An unlit cigarette stuck to his lip.

  ‘Hi,’ I said. Then I started to cry.

  Michael turned away from me and lurched headfirst into the noise. I locked the door behind me. It sounded like AC/DC or something. There was a chemical stink that mixed with the smell of my blood. Michael’s place was a mess of teacups and blankets in tents on the floor, bottles on their sides and books off the shelves – split open and stuck in the shape of brooms.

  I didn’t want to sit and I didn’t want to stand.

  Michael teetered and dropped down on his black couch, moaning as he dropped.

  ‘Stop crying, Mirabella. I want to watch you dance.’

  ‘Why?’ I screamed, trying to stop myself from more crying when he was the one sick. ‘I can’t move to this!’

  ‘It’s Swedish – Dead Korinthians,’ Michael said. He didn’t have to scream. ‘I can’t read anymore.’

  I stood there in front of him, pooling blood. I couldn’t move. The sound was male howling.

  ‘Dance, Mira!’ the skeleton said. He raised his purple-knuckled fist in the air.

  I started moving my hips in tiny circles on top of my legs. The music ramped up and Michael fisted along. His hand turned into a V sign, then back to a fist.

  I gyrated and spun. Me and Michael entered the obliteration of open men’s throats. The backs of my legs started spasming in pain, the way they had in Gio’s car.

  I heard Michael chanting. I let my head hang. I let my arms hang. I realized that all I’d really done in the past year for exercise or anything else was dance at the club, dance in high heels. My legs felt dead. I hung my head down to that sound. Almost all of my body had turned into static. I felt blood in my eyes. I started to get used to the hanging, this feeling of trying to feel through the numbness.

  I looked through my hair at Michael. He was smiling at me, perfe
ct in midnight light.

  This near-dead man wanted the truth out of me.

  Between my head and the carpet, I felt hot little beats. I wrapped my arms around my legs, hugged my chest to my thighs. It felt so good to have my stomach in a fold. My whole body spiralled in on itself.

  Michael’s face seemed thicker, suddenly pink. The song finished so abruptly that the silence rang in my ears. I stood up, unsteady. I rubbed my hands on my face.

  ‘You dance like a warrior woman now. How’d that happen, Mirabella?’

  I felt proud and then embarrassed.

  ‘Uh, there was this guy that I was seeing at the club and he said that the first time he saw me dancing he felt ashamed for me. He said I was up there because of men’s longings. Like, that all men wanted me to be their whore. And that reminded me of you and John, like how I grew up with you guys or something. But Gio said he didn’t know if I could handle that yet. He said he didn’t know if I knew how to soothe a man yet. How to let all these strange men love me for their own release. Gio said that the other girls forgot what they did – grabbing on to men’s cocks for a living. Gio said I was different. All the great whores become pure, Gio said.’

  I felt pins and needles all over my body.

  ‘And do you align yourself philosophically with this guy?’ Michael stared at me, pointing the remote at the stereo. A new song cut through, screams about Lucifer. ‘I think maybe I do,’ I said.

  My Russian evil man Jew was the Bringer of Light.

  ‘Maybe you should reconsider,’ said Michael. ‘The so-called purity of the great whore.’

  I bent my knees deep and reached my hands to the ground to sit down, but I lost my balance and fell into the carpet.

  ‘Rahab,’ said Michael, ‘was the political whore.’

  Michael lit a cigarette and immediately began to hack. His robe came open and I saw his chest. It was lined with purple holes.

  Michael passed me his cigarette. I sat up and I smoked it.

  ‘Rahab was a harlot, as they called her, a woman of the night – a totally great whore in other words, totally impure – who took these spies in, Jewish spies, and she hid them in bundles of flax on her roof when the enemy was looking for them all over the village. After the enemy left, the Jewish spies marked Rahab’s house with a red string, they made her a Jew, in fact, so that when their army came in the next day to loot and pillage and kill, Rahab and her house were saved. “Don’t touch the righteous whore’s house,” said the Jewish spies. “She collaborated with us.”’

  Michael started to shake. I got up from the floor and sat beside him. I put my arm around him. I closed his robe and gave him a puff of his cigarette.

  ‘All religion is a total mind-fuck manipulation, Mira, but I think you’re a woman of faith, I really do.’

  Michael started horking and wracking. The music was like a black-sun Nordic war.

  I put out the cigarette in the mustard-coloured shag, which I realized was pockmarked with burns. I took Michael’s hand and he took mine. He put his head on my shoulder.

  ‘I’m staying here to be your nurse,’ I said.

  ‘I have one already. John’s a very good nurse.’

  I started to cry again. A woman of faith. I wanted to tell Michael that I’d walked on the water.

  Michael attempted to turn his head to look at me but he was stiff and white. I saw that some of his teeth had fallen out.

  ‘I think this whore-purifying fascist nonsense is the key to your fucked-up issues with men.’

  I started to laugh. Michael turned the music off.

  ‘Don’t be a pussy, Rahab,’ he slurred.

  I slapped his arm. Silence.

  Michael had fallen asleep. I waited a few moments. I somehow manoeuvred to hold him, digging under his armpits. I dragged this horrible stick man down the hallway and into his bedroom. I hadn’t been in there before. Michael’s bedroom was pink, with these buffoonish kinds of curtains, I mean a Gone with the Wind kind of deal; the whole room was a little girl’s love of ribbons and bows. He had stuffed animals lined up all along the windowsill, these fluffy white dogs and rabbits and bears.

  The clock shone green: 3:13.

  I heaved Michael up onto his bed. I put him under the covers. I kissed his skull goodbye.

  The second I lay down on the couch back in the living room I fell asleep.

  When I woke up it was five in the morning. Heavy blood. I lit a fresh cigarette. I looked for the phone. I held it between my hands for a bit.

  ‘Ezrah?’

  Silence.

  ‘It’s me, it’s Mira.’

  I heard a gurgling.

  ‘Hey, Ezrah, come on. It’s early, I know … ’

  ‘What do you want?’ It sounded like Ezrah’s mouth was full. ‘Why are you calling me in the middle of the night?’

  I took the phone away from my cheek. Dusk was coming in through the blinds.

  ‘Wait,’ Ezrah said, swallowing constantly. ‘Wait, it’s just late, all right?’

  ‘No, you’re right. I shouldn’t have called.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Not sure.’

  ‘What the fuck do you mean you’re not sure? No one’s heard from you in months. My mom said your mom hasn’t heard from you in months! They don’t even have a phone number for you, Mira. Your mom’s mad. At first she was worried, but now she’s just mad. I don’t even know if she’s going to talk to you when you call. You’re gonna call her, right? Do it now. You have to call her.’

  ‘I called you, Ezrah. I don’t want to talk to my mother right now.’

  ‘Fuck! They just keep asking me if I’ve talked to you. I say, yeah I have and you’re doing fine, you just don’t feel like talking right now. But I can’t do that anymore. It’s been months, for fuck’s sake! Some girl died around there. Did you know that, Mira? I was freaking out and I couldn’t tell anyone, you hear me? I was freaking out. They found a girl’s body, she was completely naked, they knew she was a sex worker. Whatever, that’s what they called her in the papers … ’

  ‘I haven’t read the papers.’

  ‘I went down to the fucking police station, I drove all the way to the morgue with the police to see this poor girl. You know why I did that, huh?’

  I didn’t ever call the police.

  ‘Because I thought it was you. Because I thought it was you. Because I fucking thought it was you!’

  ‘Sorry … ’

  ‘No. The cops told me they found saliva in her – not semen, just saliva. They don’t even think she’s from here, they think she’s from Russia somewhere, or Poland. No one’s come to get her. No one knows anything about her. All the girls at your club are Russian or something, aren’t they? It’s disgusting. She was so skinny. Her face was black around the eyes. She looked like a crow. I was the only fucking one who’d come down to see her! The police took a swab from my mouth, they said they knew it wasn’t me, but no one had come to get her. No one!’

  I steadied my breath.

  ‘Did you know her? Mira?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I closed my eyes and this is what I saw: on an empty highway with marked-up poles and drooping wires, Adi’s head at the side of the road. It was stuck in the gravel, neck trimmed, no gore. I crouched down close. I wasn’t afraid. Because I saw there were words etched into her forehead. Green and black letters that had bled through the skin.

  It was written: This one lived according to my wishes.

  I was a woman of faith.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I whispered, wanting to throw up. My mouth felt full, full of white cud.

  ‘I want to come get you. It doesn’t matter where you are. I’ll drive and come get you. Where are you, Mir? Just tell me.’

  Ezrah’s voice had changed for a
moment. But still I couldn’t tell him where or how I was. I pressed my forehead into the receiver.

  ‘How’s school?’ I asked.

  ‘Why the fuck are you asking me that now?’

  ‘Just tell me how you are. That’s why I called.’

  ‘Just tell me where you are!’

  ‘I left, okay? That’s it. That’s all.’

  ‘Oh god. Thank god.’

  Ezrah was excited. Why was he so excited?

  ‘God, Mir, that’s good. That’s amazing. I’m so relieved. That’s amazing.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’m so happy, Mira. That stuff wasn’t for you. You know that now, don’t you?’

  What I know is that you are exactly the same.

  ‘Hey, Mir?’

  ‘What.’

  ‘Why don’t you come stay with me for a while? I don’t have my exams until December. I’m just here, studying, whatever. We can hang out for a few weeks. Or you can stay longer, it doesn’t matter. Why don’t you come and stay with me? My room’s all right, it’s big enough … ’

  ‘I’m just calling to say hi, Ezrah.’

  ‘I want us to hang out again.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Come on, don’t do this … ’

  ‘No, tell me why.’

  ‘I don’t know, because I want you to be happy … ’

  ‘I am happy.’ I am a woman of faith.

  ‘Come on, that’s not true. Your voice sounds all weird.’

  The cud in my mouth now was lining the walls.

  ‘Mira, I thought you were dead. Do you actually understand that?’

  I was about to hang up.

  ‘Wait, Mira, just wait where you are. I’m going to come get you. Just stay where you are and I’m going to come right over there and get you.’

  I held the phone far away from my face.

  ‘Don’t go yet, Mira!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I miss you. I mean, I really, really miss you.’

  The phone cord was wrapped three times around my wrist.